


Shared In The Quiet Moments

by RetroactiveCon



Series: Four Times Trouble [12]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Antisemitism, Doppelganger, Jewish Leonard Snart, Lewis Snart's A+ Parenting, M/M, Miscommunication, Past Child Abuse, Past Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25942960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: "Len, you have to know I’d have given anything for the kind of freedom you’re—”“Squandering?” Len snaps. Barry flinches and recoils into Ray’s arms. This is the crux of the argument, which means things are going to get loud, and he hates yelling. Ray cuddles him close and watches warily as Len gestures at the door. “Well, you’re here now, aren’t you? So make the most of this world I’ve apparently wasted, but don’t you fucking dare judge me for a life you haven’t lived. Just because I didn’t live through what you’ve endured doesn’t mean I never suffered.”
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart/Earth-X Leonard "Leo" Snart/Ray Terrill
Series: Four Times Trouble [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706920
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	Shared In The Quiet Moments

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started out with me cheerfully going "Len and Leo go to the synagogue together! It will be cute!" Then they decided they didn't _want_ to be cute and I ended up with 2k of the two of them opening up to each other via argument, because apparently they can't allow themselves to have nice things.

Len and Leo don’t go out together. Partly, this is practicality; they’ve excused the two of them as twins on occasion, with Len adding (not untruthfully) that his father had a sick sense of humor when asked about their names. Partly, it’s that Barry and Ray don’t trust them unsupervised together for any length of time. However, this time, Len is firm that they want some time together, and Leo seems enthusiastic about the bonding time. 

Barry and Ray fill the time with laundry, which sounds dull but gives them plenty of time to talk considering the number of sheets that need washed. Add in Ray attempting to trap Barry in the covers when they make the bed, and they’re both in high spirits when the door opens. 

Leo enters the house _bouncing_. He must have skipped while they walked home, Barry assumes, and finds himself beaming at the mental image. He can’t help running up to his bouncing lover, catching him in his arms, and kissing him. “You had fun!”

“I never thought—I—it was beautiful!” Leo’s eyes are bright, filled with emotions that Barry can’t make sense of (and neither, probably, can Leo). “Barry, you can’t even imagine, after all this time— _decades_ —”

Len, who’s come in behind him, looks oddly contemplative. “We’d have been home sooner, but _someone_ wanted to stay and talk.”

Leo wheels around at that, looking utterly flummoxed. “You never stay to talk?”

Ray pulls Leo into his arms and kisses him. “Hi, bouncy,” he coos. “Where did the two of you go for your bonding time? Do I get a guess?”

“Len took me to his synagogue!” Leo bounces again. Oh, no wonder he’s overjoyed. Barry knows from talking to him that the resistance held services of various kinds for the refugees they took in, but the difference between a service held in a hideout with the knowledge that it could be their last and the modest, safe beauty of their local synagogue must be vast. 

“It’s not _my_ anything,” Len says. His tone is remarkably mild for anything addressed to Leo, but he clearly has a stake in correcting the misunderstanding. Barry is confused. Len attends more often than he doesn’t, but he never talks about it if Barry prompts him, and he’s never brought it up with Leo before. 

“What do you mean by that?” Leo looks not just concerned but offended. Barry bites his lip. He’s about to watch them get into yet another fight, but this isn’t one he can mediate. “You don’t go often enough to consider it yours? Why in this world—when you can go, maybe cautiously but freely, why wouldn’t you?”

“It’s not that!” Len curls in on himself. Barry wants to pull him into his arms, but he knows Len won’t welcome that right now. “I don’t belong, I never have. I pushed it away to please my fucking father and I never quite…” In a mumble, he admits, “I never quite found my way back.”

Leo looks bewildered. “What do you mean, never found your way back? I saw you…you were crying.” His tone is adorably soft, as though he’s trying to coax Len to the right conclusion. Barry doubts that will end the way Leo thinks it will. “You’ve found your way back to something.”

“To my religion, yes.” Len nods. This, at least, isn’t said defensively. The way he can go from defensive to regretful and back to defensive when talking to Leo makes Barry’s head spin. He does it to a lesser degree with Barry and Ray, but Leo seems to hit every one of his nerves even after all this time. “To the community? That’s different.”

“How can it be?” Leo sits down on the sofa with a weary _plop_ of cushions. It’s such a difference from his bouncing exuberance that Barry is almost sorry this discussion started. He only refrains from pity because he thinks they both need this talk too much to stop it now. “This might be influenced by the things I’ve seen, but—our religion is _for_ our community. Even if that’s you and your family celebrating or fasting in secret, it’s ours to share.”

Len snorts. “I know that. Lewis isolated me for so fucking long…” He blinks a little too vigorously and bites the inside of his lip. “Does it make the religion I’ve found my way back to less sacred if it’s just for me?”

Leo beckons him over onto the sofa. Barry isn’t surprised to see Len stand sullenly immobile. When he realizes Len won’t join him, Leo sits forward and sighs. “No. I wouldn’t go that far. But Len, you have to know I’d have given anything for the kind of freedom you’re—”

“Squandering?” Len snaps. Barry flinches and recoils into Ray’s arms. This is the crux of the argument, which means things are going to get loud, and he hates yelling. Ray cuddles him close and watches warily as Len gestures at the door. “Well, you’re here now, aren’t you? So make the most of this world I’ve apparently wasted, but don’t you fucking dare judge me for a life you haven’t lived. Just because I didn’t live through what you’ve endured doesn’t mean I never suffered.”

“Then tell me about it!” Leo bursts out. Barry flinches again and presses one ear against Ray’s chest. Without being asked, Ray brings a hand up to press over Barry’s other ear, muffling if not quite eliminating the shouting. “This was a _beautiful_ attempt to share yourself with me, Len, and I’m grateful, but it means so little if you won’t explain things when you show me what’s important to you!”

Len looks like he wants to be frustrated, but he can’t; Leo has a point. Instead, he sighs and folds down onto the floor, where he sits cross-legged and stares up at Leo. It’s a petty way to avoid sitting on the sofa with him, even if Len has a habit of sitting on the floor anyway. “What do you want to hear? That my father tried to beat any kind of faith out of me?”

Leo flinches. “I know you’ve mentioned your father before, but your mother—was she truly never there?”

Len nods, smiling wryly. “Right. Our mother raised you. Did she have time to take you to the synagogue when you were little, or did the start of the invasion happen before that?”

Leo shakes his head and draws his knees up to his chest. At this, Barry lifts his head slowly. The shouting seems to be over, and he’s always wanted more of an explanation of what Leo endured, the details of which he’s justifiably kept to himself. “No, the Nazis first gained a foothold on the coast when I was...oh, twelve or thirteen. We were cautious during my childhood—stories came across before the war did, and anti-Semitism was rife even in America—but no, I attended a lovely synagogue. We didn’t stop going until…well, earlier than most, my mother was cautious, but not before it became clear the Nazis were gaining too much ground to be easily defeated and sympathy for them was too high to trust our neighbors anymore.”

“Lewis wasn’t in your life?” Len clarifies. He looks almost envious, and Barry’s heart breaks for him anew. 

Leo shakes his head. “And I knew just enough to be glad of that. Was he so terrible?”

Len shudders and wraps his arms around himself. Barry wants to hug him, but he’s terrified of jolting him out of this mindset where he seems to be willing to share. “Not at first. He went to prison when I was three—before that, from talking to my mother, he was inattentive but not abusive. And I had five good years free of him.” He smiles faintly. “My mother took care of me, for whatever small returns she got from _that_ thankless task. Things went downhill when my father came home.”

Barry is unfamiliar with this story save the very basics. He’s certainly never heard how it affected Len’s somewhat odd approach to his religion and heritage, and he’s never thought it wise to ask. 

“I only saw the aftermath—it was before he ever raised a hand to me—but he beat my mother viciously.” Len shudders and his eyes go distant. Barry can only imagine what kind of memories this is calling up—things no little boy should have to endure. “One day she left while I was at school. No explanation, but I figured out later dear old Dad offered her an ultimatum: stay with me and deal with the business end of his fist every time he needed to work out his frustration, or go, save herself, but leave me behind.” He scoffs. Barry knows him well enough to hear the underlying sob. “He had high hopes for me at that point. Wouldn’t let me go.”

Leo looks sick. Barry is grateful for that. The idea of dismissing Len’s pain because of his own trauma seems not to have occurred to him. 

“After that, he did his best to pull me away from any kind of community. Maybe he thought they’d try to get involved once they saw the bruises, I don’t fucking know.” Len swipes his sleeve over his cheek. “All I know is I snuck off to go to the synagogue once—I was ten, I hadn’t been in a year—and he beat me when I got back. Said religion was for women and little boys, but I was too old for it, and I’d better toughen the fuck up and stop hiding behind the idea of a higher power.” He curls forward, tucking his arms over his chest. “So I cut myself off for years, and now...” 

“You don’t know how to fit back in?” Leo ventures. He has that soft, coaxing look again. Barry can't tell if he's trying to bring Len back to the topic at hand or simply trying to coax out a little more of the story. 

“Don’t want to,” Len corrects. “When I found my way back, it was alone, on my own, in the quiet moments. So yeah, I go back and pray and listen, but it’s what’s inside that counts. And maybe it’s different for you—weird, but okay, I get it. You want to get involved and stay after and chat? Fine. But don’t tell me I’m wrong.” His eyes flash. Despite the anger, it’s such a crucial conclusion that Barry wants to run over and hug him. 

Leo is, for once, so caught off-guard that he has nothing to say. Barry speaks up. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you tell a story with that much detail.” He’s used to figuring out Len’s past as much from what he doesn’t say as what he does. This is the first time he hasn’t had to fill in too many missing pieces. 

Len jerks his head at Leo. “He wasn’t going to shut up until he got the painful details.”

“Because I want to know you.” Leo slips off the sofa and onto the floor. Len goes rigid but at least doesn’t spring to his feet, which Barry had half-expected. “We’re so different and I want to know why. I want to know what made you…”

“Into this?” Len sounds disgusted. Barry doesn’t miss the disparaging glance he casts at his own chest. “Yeah, well, apparently your Earth is good for something.”

Leo reaches out for him, but Len leaps to his feet and retreats to the kitchen. Leo is left grabbing at nothing. He looks up to meet Barry’s soft, worried glance and Ray’s pensive gaze. “I wanted this to bring us closer,” he murmurs, utterly dejected. 

“Then perhaps—" Ray gives Barry a last, reassuring squeeze before kneeling down at Leo’s side “—you should treasure the disclosures that he shares with you rather than ask for more every time. I’m not saying you’re the only one in the wrong.” He casts just enough of a glance at the kitchen that Barry knows he’s hoping Len hears. “But you were a little accusatory over what I think he meant as semantics.”

Almost too quietly for Barry to hear, Leo confesses, “I don’t know whether to pity him or envy him.”

That brings a sad little smile to Ray’s face. “Then just love him.” While Leo is still processing this, Ray gets to his feet and helps Leo up. “Come on. Let’s you and I set the table while Barry helps cook.” 

On his way to the kitchen, Barry cuddles up close to Leo and suggests, “Next week, just follow his lead. He’ll show you more than he’ll tell you.” 

He hopes for both of their sakes that it’s true.


End file.
